A Song So Free!
by Andramion
Summary: Katayanagi Kanade is restless. Her life, all her time, is devoted to the one thing that brings her peace and calm: her music. What she didn't know, was how much a boy named Tachibana Makoto could have the same effect. Feeling Free! spinoff, contains Feeling Free! SPOILERS! Please R
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: PLEASE READ**

**As it says in the description, "A Song So Free!" is a spinoff from my other Free! fanfic called Feeling Free! The start of this story falls in the same frame as chapter 21 of Feeling Free! and therefore, "A Song So Free!" holds SPOILERS for Feeling Free! So if you're new to my stories, please see whether or not you wish to read Feeling Free! first.**

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**Chapter 1: Surprise, surprise! in F major**

* * *

Makoto blew on his hands as he walked up the steps to Haru's house to pick his childhood friend Hikaru up.

His father's boss and their wife had already left, so now that the dinner party was over, he could go and fetch Hikaru. For some reason, the light-blue haired girl had gone out for emergency groceries that evening and when she'd come back, she'd insisted that Tachibana Ryousuke's boss would not be happy to see her in the Tachibana house, which could cost Makoto's father his upcoming promotion.

Whatever Hikaru had done to be disliked by the older man, Makoto was glad the ever energetic girl had become friends with his best friend Nanase Haruka too.

Shortly after he rang the bell, Haruka opened the door, letting him in.

"She's asleep," Haru said, his voice soft.

"Is she okay?" Makoto asked. Haru nodded and a weight was lifted from Makoto's chest. _Of course she's tired,_ he thought, _she spent last night talking to me to distract me from the storm outside._

"Hikaru?" he called softly as he stepped into the doorway leading to Haru's living room, to find the girl sprawled out on the floor, her lower body under the kotatsu.

She turned her head and looked at him.

"Mako-chan?" she murmured and Makoto sighed lightly. It could be hard to get a sleepy Hikaru to move, as he well knew from the multiple times his mother had asked him to wake her up for breakfast.

"Come on, Hikaru, we've got to go home. It's late." As he said it, Hikaru already sat up and started stretching. _Oh, good, at least I won't have to carry her home._

Makoto turned a little to give Haru an apologetic look.

"Yes, yes, I'm coming," Hikaru said in the living room. "Aaah, I'm so tired."

"Thanks for looking after her tonight," Makoto told Haru and he waved as he stepped out, knowing Hikaru would follow anyway. He had just reached the road when Hikaru called after him.

"Makoto, wait up!" Makoto kept his laugh to himself as he slowed down a little. How many times had he asked her to do the same when they were younger?

She was called back by Haru though, but Makoto didn't think much of it until Haru dropped that bombshell. "Go out with me."

Makoto spun around, watching Hikaru and Haru as she told him: "Of course."

_What? When?_ Makoto wanted to walk towards them, wanted to do _something_, but he was nailed to the ground. "Where did that come just come from?!" was the only thing he managed to choke out.

Hikaru didn't respond to him, she just told Haru goodnight and then walked right past Makoto. He in turn blinked, watching as she walked down the steps in the direction of the Tachibana home.

"Hikaru! Wait!" he called and he ran the short distance between them to catch up. It wasn't hard with legs as long as his. "What's this about?"

"What's what about?" she asked and Makoto ignored the childish urge to stick his tongue out to her.

"You," he said, "you and Haru! And… going out? How did that happen?" He walked right next to her, down and down the stone steps. For the first time, Hikaru looked him in the eye.

"Oh, it's just… we talked."

Makoto gave her an incredulous look. "You talked," he repeated.

"About why he was mad," she explained, but then she didn't elaborate, seemingly thinking about something. He didn't necessarily want to pry, since she looked a little… bewildered, but he couldn't help feeling curious.

"And?" They reached the bottom of the stairs, where they had to turn left and go up a few steps towards their home's gate.

"And now he asked me to go out with him. You heard that, right?"

"Of course I did, that's why I'm asking."

"Well," Hikaru said, sliding the front door open, "that's all there is to it."

Once she stepped inside and kicked her shoes off, Makoto knew that was all there was to the conversation too, at least for now.

* * *

Music floated through the air in her room as Kanade brushed her hair before going to bed. She softly hummed along with her favourite Chopin, _fantasie impromptu_. The rise and fall, rise and fall of the notes made her sway a bit on the soft, cushioned bench in front of her vanity.

A soft creak sounded when her bedroom door was opened and she turned towards the person in the doorway.

"Kana-chan," he said, leaning against the post. "Sebastian is asking whether you'd like some tea before bed."

Kanade nodded. "Please tell him I'll be down in a minute, Dai-chan." The boy nodded, closing the door behind him.

Silently, Kanade got up from her seat and walked over to her stereo. With a push of the button, she restarted the song and, humming along again, she walked back to her mirror.

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**First of all, thank you for reading and welcome to A Song So Free!**

**There are several things I want to say:**

**- thank you to all you readers coming over from Feeling Free! I really appreciate all of your support and your enthousiasm for this story! I hope you won't find the overlap too boring, but I think it's okay since it's from a different POV in this story**

**- most of this was basically chapter 21 of Feeling Free! from Makoto's POV + a little bit to introduce Kanade and Daisuke. I wanted the first chapter to just kind of be introductive. I hope you don't mind.**

**- the POV in this story will be changing between Makoto, Kanade and Daisuke regularly, though always divided by a line**

**- explanation on the chapter titles: composers Hector Berlioz and Richard Strauss wrote a theory on the different music ****_keys_**** having differnent emotions attached to them, and that is why I'll be adding the "key" in which the chapter is to each title. I thought it would be fun :)**

**- Portraits of Kanade and Daisuke are linked in my profile!**

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**So basically: thank you very, very much for reading and I hope you'll be enjoying A Song So Free!**

**- Andramion**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: A meeting! in F-sharp minor**

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"Ka-na-cha-n!"

Katayanagi Daisuke screamed his lungs out to try and get his twin sister downstairs. When he – once more – didn't receive an answer, he sighed deeply and tugged on one of the strands of his white-blond hair that fell over his forehead.

_What am I going to do with you?_ he wondered as he walked up the stairs and knocked on her bedroom door.

"Kana-chan!" he called out again. "We need to leave, or we'll be late for school." Inside her room, the music suddenly stopped and within seconds, Daisuke's twin sister came rushing through the doors, tying her green ribbon around her neck.

"Why didn't you call me?" she asked, pulling the jacket of her winter uniform on.

"I did." Daisuke found it hard to keep a straight face at times like these, but in the end, Kanade was his sister and he couldn't stay mad at her for long.

The drive to school wasn't very long, but as always, the twins got out of the car a couple of streets over and walked the rest of the way.

"Kata-kun! Hey, Kata-kun!" Daisuke let himself fall into a crouching position just in time to miss Shimanouchi Tatsuya's 'friendly man-greeting' as the older boy called it. If Daisuke had to name it, it would be something more in the direction of 'the immobilising-shoulder-clap-from-hell'.

"Hi." Daisuke's greeting sounded dryer than he'd meant it to, but Tatsuya didn't take notice of it. He hadn't done so since the start of middle school.

"How's life treating you this fiiiiiiiine morning?" Tatsuya asked in a sing-song voice. Daisuke answered with a 'fine' and let that be that, but Tatsuya, as always, wasn't satisfied with just that.

Daisuke's lively friend jogged over to Kanade, who was walking quite a bit ahead of them (courtesy of Daisuke stopping to dodge) and threw an arm around her shoulders.

"Kata-nee, how's life treating you this fiiiiiiiiiiiine morning?"

"Hey! Tatsuya!" Daisuke ran after his friend and peeled the arm off of his sister, who was clutching the ocarina hanging from her necklace so hard her knuckles has turned white. "How many times do I need to tell you to leave Kanade alone?"

"Thank you, Dai-chan," Kanade said and Daisuke transferred his gaze from Tatsuya to his sister, his expression changing from annoyed to surprised. "Good morning, Shimanouchi-san."

"Ah, Kanade! You still won't call me by my first name?" Tatsuya rubbed the back of his neck with one of his hands. "It seems kind of stand-offish don't you think?"

"Ta-tsu-ya." The black-haired boy's whole body suddenly stiffened at that tone and he turned to watch his blond friend in terror. "Leave. Her. Alone."

"Yes, sir," Tatsuya squeaked, immediately bowing to Daisuke.

"I'll be going ahead," Kanade announced. When she was a bit further away again, Daisuke's expression went back to normal and he clapped his hands as though there had been something dirty on it.

"Come on, we'll be late for class otherwise," he told Tatsuya and he too, started walking.

"Ah, Kata-kun, for such a baby-faced boy you can be really scary, you know!" His bag swinging in time with his steps, Tatsuya looked up at the clear sky. "As to be expected from a Katayanagi!"

* * *

_Classes are such a pain,_ Kanade thought as she watched her Maths teacher attempt to figure out where he went wrong in his calculation. Kanade could have already pointed it out, but she didn't feel like it. _It's not like they'll teach me anything. I just want to get away from here._

Five more minutes until lunch break, she told herself. Just five more minutes and then she'd be free for an hour. She'd already had a look at which classrooms would be available.

Leaning on the table with her elbow and resting her chin in her palm, she stared at the blackboard until the bell rang, twiddling the ocarina resting against her chest.

As soon as the three-tone tune rang out, Kanade stood up, grabbed her bag and left the classroom, on her way to the end of the second floor hall. There, classroom 2-5 was empty, since Iwatobi High currently only had four second-year classes.

She walked over to the windows and sat down on one of the desks. No one ate outside with this temperature anymore, so the school's gardens were completely abandoned and quiet.

_Good,_ she thought, setting her bag down and grabbing her ocarina with two hands. It wasn't her beloved piano, but at least this way she could take her music everywhere.

She closed her lips over the mouthpiece and let out one soft note. Immediately, she felt the pressing weight of being in school, of being around so many people, lift and, though she didn't show it on the outside, she was smiling.

Her fingers were nimble from years and years of piano practice and so, Kanade had no trouble reaching and pressing the holes on the ocarina shut. Within moments of arriving in the room, she filled the brisk, unheated air with the melody of one of her favourite pieces.

And for the first time since arriving at school that day, she felt at peace.

* * *

"I'm going to go the toilet," Makoto told Haru, who was staring out the window. "I'll be right back."

The black-haired boy nodded without looking at his friend and Makoto smiled softly. _Well, at least that hasn't changed._ He hurried out of the room, wanting to be back on time for their lunch with Hikaru and Nagisa.

The whole night Makoto had been up, thinking about how this… this new _relationship_ between his two best friends was going to change things. In all truth, he'd been quite nervous about their walk to school this morning.

So it had surprised him to no end when the two hadn't acted any different towards each other and in the group than they always had. If anything, the tension that had been so evident between them over the past three weeks seemed to have disappeared and they had reverted back to their own selves before the study session/sleepover.

After thoroughly washing his hands, Makoto stepped out of the boy's bathroom near the end of the hallway, ready to return to his classroom when he heard the music.

He turned around, frowning slightly as he tried to pinpoint where the sound was coming from. _I thought the fifth classroom wasn't in use?_ He found the door slightly ajar, the music streaming through the small opening, and he peeked through the door's window.

In the classroom, a girl sat on a desk near the window, eyes closed as she played a type of flute Makoto recognised from his Legend of Zelda games.

The lights in the classroom were off and the light streaming in from through the windows gave her silhouetted hair a glowing edge. As he stood there, listening to the music, the notes tugged at his heartstrings as he realised the melody was sad, so achingly sad.

And if there was anything gentle-hearted Makoto couldn't keep himself from doing, it was trying to cheer people up.

* * *

Daisuke sighed and started on his bento, knowing that his sister wouldn't be joining him for lunch. Otherwise, she would have shown up in the first ten minutes of their break.

Meanwhile, Tatsuya was chatting away, telling some kind of exaggerated story to their group of four. Daisuke wasn't really listening. All his life, Daisuke had wondered why he was so popular. If he had read about his own behaviour, he would have expected that person to have no friends, but still, here they were: first and foremost Tatsuya, who had stuck by him since the first day of middle school. Then Fukazawa Junichi, who'd transferred into their middle school in the second year, and Oinuma Sadao, who they'd met in their first year at Iwatobi High School.

Though Daisuke called all of them by their first names, the other boys had never taken to calling him by his. Daisuke saw the fact that he'd managed to get them to drop the –sama as a feat on its own. Especially Sadao, who was the eighth-in-line successor of the Oinuma group – an important business associate of Daisuke's parents' company – had had a lot of trouble 'not treating such an important person with the proper respect' as he'd put it.

Daisuke looked at the clock and saw they only had half an hour of their lunch period left. _I wonder where Kanade's gone off to to play,_ he thought. There was no doubt in his mind she was on her own somewhere, making music.

"Kata-kun," Tatsuya interrupted his thoughts and Daisuke turned to look at him. "Kata-nee is fine. There's no need to worry, right?"

Daisuke nodded and went back to eating his lunch, shutting the other boys' conversation out again.

_If only it were that simple._

* * *

As the last notes of the melody faded away in the large room, Kanade lifted her lips from the instrument and thought about which song she should play next. Some Liszt, or Vivaldi maybe…

A shuffle by the door made her look up quickly and she saw someone behind the door's window. Her eyes grew wide when she realised someone had been listening in and the dark green frame of her glasses slid down her nose.

The door was opened completely and a brown-haired boy stepped in, one of his hands in his neck.

"Ah, I'm sorry," he said and Kanade looked at him curiously. "I just heard you playing and I couldn't help listening." He gave her a gentle smile that she hadn't expected to see on the face of someone as big and tall as him.

"That's okay," she said. She let go of her ocarina and felt it fall against her breastbone. The boy walked over to the desk across from the aisle from her and sat down too, though in contrast to her, his feet easily touched the ground.

"It was beautiful. Kind of sad, but beautiful nonetheless." Kanade blinked at the compliment. She hadn't expected him to actually strike up a conversation.

"It isn't called Tristesse for nothing," she replied, not really knowing what else to say. Chopin's Étude OP 10, NO 3 had been given the names Tristesse and Farewell because of the sultry feel of it.

The boy didn't respond to that. He just looked past her, out the window as Kanade quietly watched him. She was intrigued by way he seemed to just _radiate_ calm. She cocked her head slightly as she took in the image of him.

_Green tie,_ she thought, _so a second-year, like Dai-chan and I._ She was surprised. He looked a lot older than her. Just as she reached for the instrument on her necklace, the boy turned back to her and spoke.

"It's an ocarina, right?" he asked.

Kanade nodded. "Do you play music too?" The boy let out a hearty chuckle and Kanade noticed she liked the sound of it.

"No, I have to say music doesn't lie within my range of talents. Oh, I guess I can sing a bit, but nothing special." He gave her another one of those smiles, the gentle one, his eyes closed as he scratched his cheek in embarrassment.

"So what does?"

He opened his eyes and gave her a confused look. "What does what?"

"Lie in your range of talents," she said, using his own words.

"Oh, I swim."

Kanade turned her head to look out the window. From classroom 2-5, she had a clear view of the school swimming pool, set apart from the main building.

"Isn't it too cold to swim?"

"We're renting out a gym's swimming pool during the off-season. Our budget was raised after we won and went on to regionals."

Kanade didn't even know the school had a proper swimming club. "You won?"

"There was a school-wide announcement and all," the boy told her, smiling again. Kanade blushed lightly, a little embarrassed that she hadn't heard it. "But anyway…"

There was a silence between them and Kanade wondered why this boy had decided to talk to her. People usually didn't, either because they didn't feel like it or because Kanade avoided conversation. It had worked pretty well for her during all those years her father made her and Daisuke go to school.

"Could you play some more?" he asked her out of nowhere and Kanade sat up a little straighter. She'd gotten requests before, but only in the comfort of her own house, usually by her brother or, when she was home, her mother.

She nodded, picking her ocarina up again and positioning her fingertips. "What do you want to hear?" she asked, but the boy was already shaking his head.

"Whatever you feel like playing."

Kanade thought about that for a moment, before she put the instrument to her lips. _Something happy then,_ she thought.

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**Thanks for reading!**

**I am really curious as to what you guys think of these new OCs (Kanade, Daisuke, Tatsuya) after reading a bit about them. If you have any thoughts or comments on this chapter or the story in general, **_please leave me a review_**!**

**I really hope you are all going to like this story too. To be honest, I am a little nervous about it, since I think Hikaru is a character that's easier to relate to than Kanade is. On top of that, this story takes place COMPLETELY out of the Anime's storyline, so I don't really have a skeleton to build up from.**

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**A big thank you to:**

**IAmTheRedMaskHeWears** - for being the first reviewer of this story and also the first to follow and favourite it :) I hope I'll entertain you with this story  
**myrainbowsoul** - for following  
**mikashiro** - for clicking follow and favourite  
**Ninjakittyx3** - for doing the follow and favourite

**ALSO: The Katayanagi twins' character pictures are linked in my profile!**


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